Chapter 179: Back to Business

After Calvin got clean and began feeling like a human again, he started noticing things.

In the week he’d been gone, there had been some subtle and some not-so-subtle changes in the city of Allast.

One of the not-so-subtle changes were the guards stationed at every street corner, giving peope the stink-eye, while random passerby where stopped and their temples and hands checked.

“What’s all this?” Calvin asked Kala as they walked to the meeting. This one wasn’t so annoying as to have a ‘men only’ restriction, so Calvin was planning on taking full advantage of Kala’s presence.

“It’s the Diocese response to word of a mutant killer potentially at large,” Kala responded, a sour look on her face. “The Diocese’s surgeons found undeniable proof the man was a mutant, and with Learner’s testimony, they were able to create a profile of traits to look for.”

“Now they’re searching everyone for signs?” Calvin asked.

“Pretty much.”

Crude and ineffective. Calvin thought, but he didn’t have a better suggestion that didn’t involve him stepping in and taking care of Juntai’s problem personally.

At least the guardsmen were businesslike and dispassionate as they checked citizens for signs of mutation.

Kala and Calvin put their heads down and kept walking, but it was only a matter of time before they were stopped and checked.

Calvin restrained himself from rolling his eyes as the Juntai guardsmen gave them a once-over.

He was seething when the same thing happened at the second streetcorner.

At the fifth one he was already dead inside.

“We stand out.” Kala said with a shrug. “Get used to it. People see us standing out and naturally think they’re the first ones to notice.” She gave him a wry smile.

“You know just how to say things to help me understand other people’s dumb.” Calvin said, linking arms with her as they walked.

“It’s my pleasure to bridge the gap for you,” Kala said with a brilliant smile.

At least until they got stopped at the next streetcorner.

As a random Juntai man that Calvin didn’t know clamped his rough, dirty fingers around Calvin’s skull and turned his head from side to side, looking for trepanning holes, Calvin was slowly cementing his plan to make a get out of my way I.D. card

I’ll use Lure dust mixed with trait doctoring, stealing the identity of other I.D. card until the lure dust… learns it? Maybe consult with Jinsei on some Nem glass to create enchanted glass. Calvin had no idea how to infuse the complacency aura into glass but now would be a good time to try.

Speaking of which, Calvin thought, waiting for the guard to let him go and motion for the next victim.

“Take my hand so you don’t wander off.” Clavin said, grasping Kala’s hand with his own then putting his thumb on the Complacency component. He wasn’t sure how the spell would affect their ability to keep track of each other.

“Ah,” Kala nodded in understanding.

Multi Gradual Splitting.

36/46 Bent remaining.

The catalysts and a bit of Calvin’s and Kala’s blood began passing through the shrunken, preserved Stalker organ, converting from matter into complacency. Suddenly no one cared about them. They walked past the checkpoints on the corner of every street, the eyes of observers simply sliding off them.

Totally worth a Bent, Calvin thought as he saved an estimated hour and a half getting to the lumberyard.

The man who replaced Carem Sageva was neither handsome nor particularly intelligent. He was, however, old, wealthy, and respected, which…kind of made up for it?

Gunder Pine was fat, with a bulbous nose and balding head, but while his appearance was appalling, the energy he conveyed in his movements and the genuine smile made him actually somewhat attractive.

He was wrapped in a single bolt of cloth that protected his modestly, standard fare for the jungle, but the bolt itself was obviously an import from Boles: Rich green silk embroidered with gold thread to boot. Calvin could only imagine the pains that must have been taken to make that cloth, embroider it, transport it throuands of miles through monster infested wilds only to wrap it around a fat man.

Life was funny sometimes.

“Welcome, Welcome!” the man, one Gunder Pine said, the overweight man spreading his arms jovially as they approached. “I’ve been anxiously awaiting the opportunity to meet you! The savant of negotiation who established the first major trade agreement between our nation and another.”

“If anything,” Calvin said, shaking the man’s proffered hand. “When it comes to people, I’m frankly the opposite of a savant, Which is why I rely on the strengths of other savants.”

“I see. I see,” he said with a grin. “And who’s this?”

“This is my wife, one of my stable of people specialists.”

Kala raised a brow at the ‘Stable’ comment, but simply nodded gracefully, not offering her hand. In juntai shaking a married woman’s hand was tantamount to adultery, so no one ever really appreciated being offered a handshake.

Except for a few creeps.

“I can tell just by looking at you that you’re genuinely excited to see this business underway,” She said before cocking her head, her eyes looking through Gunder. “I can also tell you have a consistent, longstanding reputation for enriching your friends and punishing your enemies. So I suppose the blunt question should be, how can we become your friends, Mr. Pine?”

“Ooh, she is good,” Gunder said with a grin. “Come in, come in, let’s talk sitting down and have something to drink. “I’m sure the walk over was exhausting, what with all those checkpoints.”

“You’re not wrong,” Calvin said, following him inside a rough-hewn log cabin that showed signs of being picked up and moved from site to site. Inside was a round table composed of a single cross-section of a tree that must have been gigantic.

Calvin could lie down on the polished wood with no hope of reaching either end.

Calvin sat down and graciously accepted some tea, and that was the end of his involvement in the process, aside from the occasional nod and thoughtful noise.

In the end, Calvin simply sipped his tea while he watched Kala charm the pants off the man.

Not that anyone present was wearing pants. It was too hot for that.

***

After witnessing what was no doubt a masterclass in ingratiating yourself while extracting the best deal possible, Calvin reviewed it mentally and found that there were some logic leaps that had been made in the fluid, rapidfire conversation that his skill simply couldn’t let him parse, like he’d missed out on parts of the conversation.

Were they body language, like at the market with Kala and Ella, or cultural exchanges unique to Juntai natives that he was totally unaware of, and Kala somehow was? She had a lot of free time recently. Perhaps she’d dug into local culture.

Calvin had no idea which it was, or if it was some foreign people concept that he had no idea even existed.

Well, that’s why I brought her along, anyway, Calvin thought to himself as they left the meeting.

The terms of the deal were as such:

Calvin would take over the burden of constructing a both a railway of steel the eight hundred and forty-two miles between Allast and Calvin’s territory, and a contraption that could navigate between them. In exchange, Gunder would take on the burden of maintaining all the rail lines between Juntai and Gadvera, as well as grooming and employing railway operators to navigate between the two.

Both of them would receive a sizeable fraction of the final profit of goods moved back and forth between the two cities via the trains.

You’re gonna help with designing that, right?

Please. I could design a simple DC motor in my sleep. Plus I think the Knick-knacks could do it even easier. It’s gonna take a lot of copper though.

Calvin glanced around at all the copper everyone was wearing on the street.

Although copper was highly valued as a material, on par with gold, it didn’t mean they were lacking it.

Calvin was concerned with how much steel it would take, though

You want an approximate number? A metric fuck-ton.

After a bit of math, Calvin discovered something.

No nation in the known world had enough iron to simply bridge the gap between Juntai and Gadvera. It was unfeasible. Literal tons upon tons of iron to simply go a few hundred feet.

Well you are trying to use magic to skip a few crucial steps of the industrial revolution. Might as well lean into it. Once the rails are up, maintenance will be affordable and within the realm of a pre-industrial nation, the sheer quantity of wealth generated by the trains will allow for that.

Alright. Let’s make this happen.

Calvin and Kala travelled to the north-western side of Allast and began setting up the trainyard, where good would be loaded and offloaded.

Calvinian Summoning.

….

30/46 Bent remaining.

Calvin set the first group of oversized Knick-knacks on clearing the land. He made six enormous knick-knacks, each one weighing in at twenty-seven thousand pounds, which was the absolute limit of the spell’s mass.

Fun fact. The average farm tractor weighs six thousand pounds.

The gigantic metal men lumbered from place to place, shaking the very ground as they tore trees out of the jungle floor like a gardener plucks weeds, tossing the huge lengths of raw wood idly aside as they created an ever-expanding clearing. The trees shook the ground and hurt the ears as they landed, adding to the chaos

Calvinian Summoning.

26/46 Bent Remaining.

The next group, smaller in size, but larger in number, followed behind and cleared smaller shrubs, filled holes left by trees and stamped down the earth to pack it tighter. They also swarmed over the growing pile of trees, stripping tree branches and slicing wood, converting the pile into raw lumber, which they transported to a separate, pile, where…

Oh right.

Calvin touched the canister of drying powder on his belt.

Shaping

25/46 Bent remaining.

Calvin created a large bucket containing four hundred and eighty pounds of the specially prepared Ooze-weaver slime, but he was almost positive that wasn’t going to be enough to treat all the tons and tons of raw lumber.

I’ll create more as I need it.

Calvin considered his Bent stores. This may not be enough. I’ll have to dispatch Nadia to collect more Bent.

If I have to I guess… Nadia said in his mind, her tone studiously bored.

But then again, she’s been successfully targeted by a mind-slurper twice, so a better choice would be Kurawe.

It would be an honor.

No, godsdamnit! You can’t make me a prisoner because some shmuck got lucky twice! If someone tries to get up close and personal with me I’ll stab him and that’ll be the end of that. Nadia said.

You realize getting up close and personal is exactly what I need you to do to get Bent? You can’t just stab everyone.

I was hoping you wouldn’t realize that.

Calvin rolled his eyes, about to summon Kurawe again.

About that, Elliot interjected. Why not use Master-baiter on her and Chimera to make her skull impenetrable? He’s already gone for her twice, so she’s obviously attractive to him. You use Master-Baiter on her with the proper setup and we could get this guy without having to do a city-wide sweep.

Not a bad idea, Calvin thought, nodding.

Okay, Nadia, you’re going to get your wish. You get free time in the city in exchange for Bent production.

Yuss! Nadia gave a grunt-like exclamation with what felt like a hand-pump

However, I’m going to have to make some…minor changes to your physiology.

…I don’t like the sound of that.

Don’t worry, it shouldn’t be a problem unless someone tries to eat your brains. And I mean, if you’re at that point, it’ll probably be preferable to getting your brains eaten.

You make a solid argument.

Let’s see Nadia’s body.

Visualize.

A perfect representation of Nadia’s body appeared in his mind’s eye, sans clothes.

Calvin ignored it and changing the transparency of everything except for the brain, nervous system and modifications.

Load up all the modifications we’ve listed as successful.

Tubes appeared, beginning in her forearms and leading to her fingertips, where the Spinner goop made reality warping blades.

On her parietal lobe, a thin film of Lure sensory nerves interfaced with her brain.

In her ribcage and hips, several clusters of Spinner flight organs appeared, attached to the relatively sturdy portions of her frame.

Remind me to make it so she can breathe fire, Calvin thought, thinking of the Fire-Worm as he made Nadia’s lungs and trachea visible again.

No promises.

It would probably be better to situate the gland in her mouth or…perhaps have the nozzle under her tongue? Would that make it harder to breath out the fluid if her tongue was obstructing the pathway? Calvin thought to himself as he made everything clear except for her jaw, tongue, and windpipe, pulling the image up close to himself and rotating it so he was viewing it from under her jaw.

I would need to make sure there was enough momentum before it cought fire outside her face, else she’s burn it off or explode every time she tried to breathe fire…Unless one of my summons is fireproof, which I doubt.

You’re getting distracted.

Oh, right. Put a pin in it.

Calvin changed the view to Nadia’s skull and immediately began booby-trapping it.

He accomplished this by turning her skull into swiss cheese and replacing it with packets of unactivated crystal Lattice catalyst.

There, right there! You can’t tell me you don’t know what swiss cheese is.

A kind of cheese that’s got a lot of holes.

Yeah, but why is it called Swiss?

Because it’s full of holes? That’s what swiss means.

Ugh, whatever.

If anyone tried to poke one of the packets residing in the many, many holes in Nadia’s head, it wouldn’t go well for them. Namely an eruption of razor-sharp, magic-resistant crystal to the face.

This isn’t going to be a standard change, Calvin thought, directing the words at Nadia. You’re not always going to be hunted by a brain sucker, but in the meantime…try not to scratch your head too hard, m’kay?

Got it.

Once Calvin was done with Bait Nadia, he made Stealth Kurawe to keep an eye on her. Calvin was briefly considering giving Nadia the role of supervising herself, then realized that was stupid.

Kurawe was reduced in size from seven feet to five, made thinner and more inconspicuous by replacing his copious fat reserves with Nadia’s and given several additions from a Stalker, giving him a small Complacency aura of his own, as well as a matching booby trap on his own skull: No way the brain-slurping bastard was getting another of his summons for free.

The demagogue zealot wasn’t bad looking once the modifications were in place. A short, slender, somewhat handsome older man. Calvin didn’t trust either of them as much as Kala, but he trusted Kurawe’s blind devotion just a bit more than Nadia.

Chained Spirit

Chimera

24/46 Bent remaining

Calvin held out his hand and Nadia materialized out of the green smoke, hesitantly touching her skull.

“try not to play with it.” Calvin said, holding out his other hand.

Chained Spirit

Chimera

23/46 Bent remaining.

Midget Kurawe appeared in front of him, kneeling.

“You two know what you need to do,” Calvin said to the two of them. “Observe her with the complacency aura on at all times. If she’s attacked, don’t interfere, just report it back to me. And of course this goes without saying, but if she tries to undermine me, I’d like to know about that too.”

“As you wish, Ravager,” Kurawe said, lowering his head even further.

“Why’s he gotta spy on me?” Nadia demanded scowling at the midget giant. Kurawe turned on the complacency aura, fading from concern. “Well, whatever. I guess it’s fine.”

Calvin straightened Nadia’s collar, activating Master Baiter.

“Go do your jobs.” The two summons turned and trotted along the dirt path leading back to the city, drawing Calvin’s attention to where Gunder Pine was exiting the treeline, trailed by several dozen fit young men with lumberjack equipment.

“Good evening,” Calvin called over the din of trees landing on the ground, saws cutting through wood and mechanical muscles whining with effort.

He walked up to where the aging businessman stood, his jowels quivering under his open mouth.

“I thought…I thought you might need some help, since it’s going to be years…before…we can get started.” Gunder said, staring at the massive metal men plucking ancient trees out of the ground with zero apparent effort, their weight so unbelievably massive that they sanke deep into the ground as they walked.

“Years?” Calvin asked incredulously, chuckling. “I’ll have this done in a month. Why do you think we incentivized you with better returns the faster we finish? We wanted to establish goodwill.”

Calvin had a thought. “There is one thing you can help with.”

“Yes?”

“Any of you have any good, high quality steel?” Calvin asked.

Calvinian summoning.

22/46 Bent remaining.

Calvin summoned a Calvin Mass Converter, causing the people assembled to reel back in surprise as the enormous slug-monster manifested in front of him shortly before one of the nearby metal giants picked it up and moved it to the side of the recently cleared land.

“I…ah, what?” Gulder’s attention snapped back to Calvin as the CMC began being fed wood and stone while being energetically milked by the nearby smaller knick-knacks.

“Good, high quality steel, as close to perfect as you’ve got,” Calvin said. “preferably non-tarnishing.”

Gunder glanced up at the slug monster making whole strees disappear, then back to Calvin’s face, shaking himself out of his stupor.

“I’ve got this blade,” he said, pulling out a thin knife from his belt. It was obviously worn from time and multiple resharpenings, but the steel looked absolutely fine.

“It was my grandfathers, been in the family forty years. Never a bit of rust.”

Calvin accepted it from the man and turned it back and forth in his hand.

“Gunder, would you do me the honor of allowing me to use your grandfather’s blade as the first rail of the line that will connect Allast with the outside world?”

Gunder’s face slowly broke into a smile.

“I like you, kid.”

“I like me too.” Calvin said, handing the knife back.

“Kneel down and hold the knife at ankle-level.” Calvin said, his Intuition telling him it was better for Gunder to do this part himself. Gunder needed to feel like a part of what was happening.

Gunder did so, and watched with unconcealed wonder as a dozen smaller knickknacks took the undifferentiated matter and began carefully piping it to the tip of the dagger, creating a large swell of fine steel at the tip of the knife where all three liquids intersected.

They moved with unnatural precision, piping an enormous, perfectly straight and smooth metal beam using the gush of fluid milked from the CMC, occasionally cleaning up a bump too small for Calvin’s eyes to make out with grinding wheels.

In a matter of seconds, they had the first rail completed, and Gunder broke his knife away from the rail with a twist of his hand.

The disconnect left a small chunk torn out of the blade’s tip, which he stared at in awe.

“I can have them clean that up for you if you want.”

“I think I’ll keep it.” Gunder said with a smile, slipping the pitted blade back into its sheath. “Something tells me my family heirloom is gonna be famous.”